Our next stop was Madurai, the cultural and political capital of the south Indian state Tamil Nadu. This region is believed to have been inhabited since at least 3rd century BCE. The entire city of Mathura was built around the famous Meenakshi Amman Temple. This region has a population of around 1 million and the interesting thing is that the sex-ratio of Madurai according to 2011 census is 999 females for every 1000 males, which is much above the national average of 927 (Just for reference, Austria has 960 males per 1000 females, United States has 970 males per 1000 females, and China has 943 females for every 1000 males). The region has religious majority of Hindus (85.8%), followed by Muslims (8.5%), Christians (5.2%), and Others (0.5%).
We visited this place primarily to see the famous
Meenakshi Amman Temple. This temple was referred to in ancient scripts from the 6th century CE. The goddess Meenakshi is the principal deity of the temple, unlike most Shiva temples in South India where Shiva is the principal deity (Meenakshi is the feminine consort of Shiva). Around the 12th century the muslim invaders destroyed parts of this temple and looted the gold and valuables. It took a few centuries for this temple to be rebuilt.
We were awestruck with the level of details and the amount of work that was put into building this temple. If you are in South India, this is a wonderful temple to admire the architecture and deep rooted spirituality engraved into the minds and lives of people here.
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| An aerial view of the compound from the top of the southern gopuram, looking north. (Source: Wikipedia) |
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| A view from inside the temple |
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| Kathi with one of the towers in the background |
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| North tower of the temple |
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| Flower vendors preparing garlands for the temple visitors |
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